SHOULD I CHOOSE? I was in a long-dis­tance re­la­tion­ship with my boyfriend for two years and it was go­ing well un­til I fell in love with a guy at work. How­ever, my boyfriend made sure we saw each other a lot and even moved closer to me so we could have more time to­gether. I even­tu­ally ended the re­la­tion­ship.

A few months later I found out the col­league I was see­ing is mar­ried to the mother of his two kids. They’ve been sep­a­rated for two years but he says he can’t di­vorce her be­cause she threat­ens to take the kids away. He wants to make me his sec­ond wife but I don’t feel com­fort­able with that. Now my ex has made con­tact and wants us to fix things. I’m con­fused. JT, EMAIL

AIt’s never ad­vis­able to com­mit your­self to a re­la­tion­ship when you don’t have all the facts about your part­ner. You were look­ing through rose-coloured glasses and made a rushed de­ci­sion and now you might have lost some­thing worth­while over noth­ing.

If there were is­sues with your longdis­tance re­la­tion­ship you should have dealt with them in­stead of go­ing into an­other re­la­tion­ship. What you need to do now is some se­ri­ous in­tro­spec­tion – think long and hard about who you want to be with, who makes your heart sing and who you can’t imag­ine your life with­out. Then de­cide.

QEMOTIONAL BLACK­MAIL

My girl­friend has threat­ened to kill her­self if I leave her and I’m not sure what to do. I want to leave but I don’t want to be re­spon­si­ble for her death. CON­CERNED, SMS

AYour

girl­friend can’t hold you at ran­som and force you to stay in a re­la­tion­ship that doesn’t ful­fil you any­more. She needs to come to terms with the fact that the re­la­tion­ship is over and move on. How can she be con­tent in a re­la­tion­ship that’s forged by threats and be­lieve it’s healthy? She needs help.

Call the South African De­pres­sion and Anx­i­ety Group’s sui­cide helpline on 0800-567-576 for as­sis­tance. For joint coun­selling, call Life­Line on 0800-150-150 but still stick to your de­ci­sion to cut ties with her and live your life.

QPURSUING MY DREAM

I grad­u­ated from univer­sity ma­jor­ing in English lit­er­a­ture and lan­guage. I’m re­ally in­ter­ested in be­com­ing a writer and writ­ing my own book. Some­times I write about things that pique my in­ter­est or about what I’m feel­ing. This is some­thing I re­ally want to do but I don’t know how to make my dream come true. ODWA, EMAIL

AThat

sounds ex­cit­ing and if it’s some­thing you re­ally want you should def­i­nitely go for it. The first step would be to find out what type of books you’re in­ter­ested in writ­ing.

Do some re­search about that and read books of that style to see how they’re writ­ten. You could also find an on­line course on how to write a book then scout for pub­lish­ers when you’re ready for proper guid­ance. Wish­ing you the best of luck.

QHE HAS NO DRIVE

My 40-year-old hus­band and I have been to­gether for 10 years. He has been promis­ing he’d learn to drive since we met but there’s al­ways some ex­cuse. This means I have to drive ev­ery­where – even when I was preg­nant and af­ter I had the baby. It’s caused prob­lems in our mar­riage so I spoke to his mother and she said she’d talk to him. That was six months ago and noth­ing has changed.

He lacks mo­ti­va­tion and the de­sire to suc­ceed so now I’m think­ing of di­vorc­ing him and rais­ing my child alone. Where is his pride? How can some­one who can’t drive be the head of a fam­ily? BN, EMAIL

AThere

could be a valid rea­son why your hus­band isn’t ea­ger to drive. He might have some deep-seated trauma in­volv­ing a car or driv­ing. You need to get to the bot­tom of this with­out crit­i­cis­ing him. You also have to de­cide why you’re think­ing about di­vorc­ing him.

Is the chal­lenge so big and the dam­age so great you’re pre­pared to throw 10 years down the drain? I think you should try mar­riage coun­selling. Call Famsa on 011-975-7106/7 to find an of­fice near you.

QTIME TO GO

I’m a 55- year- old man with two grown-up daugh­ters. Please can you help me get them to leave my house be­cause they seem to think they’re un­touch­able. FED UP, SMS

AAs

soon as they turn 18 they’re no longer your re­spon­si­bil­ity and should find their own way in the world. You can ask as­sis­tance from the Fam­ily Life Cen­tre on 011-788-4784 to con­duct a fam­ily ther­apy ses­sion so you can all dis­cuss this.

If nec­es­sary you can ask a court to move them out of your house, but that could ruin re­la­tions be­tween you and your daugh­ters for­ever.

‘Is the chal­lenge so big and the dam­age so great you’re pre­pared to throw 10 years down the drain?’